TikTok has announced that its services have been fully restored after experiencing disruptions last week that affected user engagement. With over 220 million users in the U.S., the platform attributed the outage to a snowstorm that impacted an Oracle-managed data center essential for its operations.
In a statement, the company explained, "We have successfully restored TikTok back to normal after a significant outage caused by winter weather that affected a primary U.S. data center site operated by Oracle. The storm led to a power failure, resulting in network and storage complications that impacted thousands of servers crucial for TikTok's functionality in the U.S. This disruption affected various core features, including content posting, discovery, and the real-time display of likes and views."
Earlier this January, a deal was finalized in the U.S. to establish a new ownership structure for TikTok. A consortium of U.S.-based investors, known as TikTok USDS, took a controlling 80% stake, while ByteDance retains the remaining 20%.
Following this transition, users encountered several glitches, such as difficulties in posting content and slower load times. TikTok indicated that creators might notice zero views on their posts until the issues were resolved. Despite efforts to rectify the situation, users continued to face challenges with content sharing.
Interestingly, TikTok's shift in ownership coincided with a rise in popularity for competing platforms. The Mark Cuban-backed short video app Skylight saw its user base surge to over 380,000 during this period. Another platform, Upscrolled, also climbed the App Store rankings, reaching the second spot in the social media category after being downloaded 41,000 times shortly after the TikTok deal.